70 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Voi. ix. 



of adults flying nor of any new burrows ; but we did see signs of very 

 recent digging from what seemed to be old sand hills. It looked as 

 if new earth had been pushed out of the old burrows, and on investi- 

 gation it proved that the oblique sand arm was being used and that 

 bees were working in the borings. A number of the active hills were 

 marked. 



On the morning of the iSth four casts were put down, and on the 

 afternoon three others. In digging to these casts a number of closed 

 burrows were found and traced down with knife and trowel. An un- 

 expected result was that not a single brood cell was found in any of 

 the burrows ; nothing but irregular fingers. The bees seem to have 

 spent themselves in digging ; first a very deep perpendicular and from 

 that all sorts of irregular lateral galleries ; but in not a single case was 

 there a cluster of brood cells such as we found everywhere in June and 

 July. The casts showed exactly the same features ; there were a great 

 lot of irregular processes ; but there was not one single cluster, not a 

 solitary brood cell, not a larva nor any other early stage found. And 

 these were all burrows made by July bees ! Mr. Brakeley and I saw 

 the bees coming out of their summer burrows ; and Mr. Brakeley saw 

 them beginning to dig between July 14th and 2 2d. Thoughout that 

 same territory where this digging was most active, we now find mostly 

 flattened sand hills : a few from which fresh sand is being forced. In 

 one case the sand was being carted directly out of the perpendicular. 

 In the others it was forced through an oblique lateral which was not 

 the same as that made in July : in fact, in one case we found traces 

 of no less than three separate oblique laterals, all sand filled. 



The interesting and unexpected feature was that not one of these 

 midsummer burrows — and we traced at least twenty — showed any ap- 

 pearance of breeding cells. There is indeed not a particle of evidence 

 that there has been any second brood ; on the contrary, everything 

 goes to prove that there has been none, and that the insects simply dig 

 down to get beneath the surface : for despite their bright, metallic 

 color they are strictly subterranean. One of the casts went down 

 52, another 55 inches and two of them we did not follow to the end ; 

 but where we did we usually found bees at the bottom. In other 

 words we found practically the same condition of affairs that we found 

 in Spring in Cock Robin Park where we first began work. Hiberna- 

 tion had really begun for some of them. In one case we found three 

 bees, in another two bees, apparently working in laterals from the 



